St. Francis is now finished. I have put together a slide show of several photos of the carving.
Click on the photo to view the slide show

12-20-2010 – First coat of stain.

12-18-2010 – Ohhh so close to finished. Just a few more details – the inside of one of the sleeves…the eyes…and some smoothing and cleaning. Then for the finish. I hope to have him completely finished by Tuesday or Wednesday, 12-21 or 12-22.

12-12-2010 – I have been very busy. The rope belt, beads, and cross are finished, as is the rabbit.

12-9-2010 – The robes drapes are finished, and the rabbit is in. The back collar is cleaned up as is the placement for the beads the cross will hang on. There is still quite a bit of detail to do, but it’s getting there! 🙂

11-5- 2010 – I have been working on reducing the size of St. Francis’s head…it is now in much better proportion. Also have been carving the folds in his robe. I love carving drapery though I still have much to learn about it. Started on the rabbit at his feet, too, and have changed the ears some. The back ear will rest on the robes and the forward ear will be lower and rest on the rabbit’s body. I am concerned with breakage both in shipping and with exposure to weather.

10-20-2010 – Progress. I really like when I get to the point where everything seems to make a difference in the carving. Here I have added St. Francis’s traditional 3-knot rope and have started working on the drapery.

10-13-2010 – I have added some fold details, narrowed the head, added ears, clarified the squirrel and bird, and somewhat detailed the hands.

9-20-2010–Here are a couple of new pictures of St. Francis. He now has a bird on one shoulder and a squirrel on the other. His face has been slimmed down and his head has been reshaped some.

It’s strange how sometimes what seems to be the simplest thing will end up being the most time consuming. I have finally gotten the lamb to look like a lamb. Now I can move on to the other animals, and texture them when all the details are the way I want them.

To get a better idea of the 3-dimensional aspects of the lamb, I’ve made a clay model to work from.

8-7-10 Getting to more details…now carving the lamb and shoulder/neck area

7-25-10 St. Francis is moving right along.

The basic shape is almost complete. After that I’ll be adding detail.

More progress. We’ve had some construction going on in the house, with lots of “stuff” stored temporarily in the studio. Now that that is finished, I’m back to getting things done! 🙂

He’s starting to look a little more like St. Francis!

Lots more chips!! He is starting to emerge from the block

The chips have been flying. There is a lot of wood to remove, but it’s moving along well.

Finally, the carving begins!! I just got the new Rockwell Jawhorse, and I do think it is going to be one handy piece of equipment!

Here is a preliminary sketch of St. John the Evangelist.

The mahogany blocks are here and look GREAT!!! Now I can’t wait to get started carving.!!

Side view sketch is done.

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    Preliminary Sketch

As you can see, the transition from clay model to sketch is a big one. This is where I fill in details, make changes in proportions. Once this view is completed, I’ll sketch the side view. This will then become my pattern for carving.

Starting a new carving is always exciting. This will be one of two 25″ tall X 12″ wide X 9″ deep sculptures, carved in mahogany and finished for exterior display. I have been accumulating research material and working on rough sketches for this carving, and today worked on a 1/4 size clay model. A carving this size will require having wood glued up to form a block large enough. I would like to avoid having seams in the head or face, and having the model will help in determining where seams will be. I’ll be refining some of the proportions a little more before doing the sketches.

The clay model is rough, used pretty much to work out placement of features, proportions, general design, etc. From this I'll be able to do more detailed sketches.